By Jen Hayden / Daily Kos
A row of tiny homes in Madison, Wisconsin
(Screenshot from WKOW video)
Out of the Occupy Madison protests a cool idea was hatched: Building 98-square-foot homes for those without. The homes have a bed, kitchen, bathroom, storage and propane heat. Future residents take part in building the homes.
The homes cost just $3,000 to construct, most of it funded by community donations. A revolving crew of volunteers provided the labor, including Betty Ybarra. Previously homeless, she now resides in the home she helped construct. “It’s exciting. I’ve never even owned my own house,” Ybarra told WMTV
After getting shuffled around the city while they figured out the best place to build the village, they finally settled on a location and it officially opened November 15th.
“Rather than taking people form the streets and putting them in a building, we thought we could work together to create our own structures,” says Luca Clemente, with Occupy. “We don’t give houses to homeless people, we enable people to build their own houses to create their own futures.”When complete, there will be nine homes in the village made from reclaimed and recycled materials. Organizers hope to add a garden, tree orchard and chickens.
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I’m proud of Madison!
Great idea. Of course the major problems are zoning and utility hook-ups. Are there individual meters for electricity? What about waste water? What about internet? Finding the land to put these places with appropriate utility hook-ups would be the major obstacle in my opinion. Once the plans have been drawn up for the houses, it should be easy to replicate them. They could even be mass produced. Churches and non-profits should be able to swing the major investments in terms of land and utilities.
I publish the San Diego Homeless News, and its Search Engine website for poor folks to find things, http://www.NZ9F.com. There is a nice photo on my Home Page of the village being assembled, or at least the RV units being transported, with links to NPR, National Public Radio, which originally broke the story. I provide links to all known Underground Newspapers on my site (black section, top of every page).